found this (myself) to be working (don't forget to change the language setting 'language=nl' to the one you want ;) ):
Public Function GetLatLon(ByVal addr As String) As String
Try
Dim url As String = "http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/xml?address=" & addr & "&sensor=false&language=nl"
Dim request As System.Net.WebRequest = WebRequest.Create(url)
Dim response As HttpWebResponse = request.GetResponse()
If response.StatusCode = HttpStatusCode.OK Then
Dim ms As New System.IO.MemoryStream()
Dim responseStream As System.IO.Stream = response.GetResponseStream()
Dim buffer(2048) As Byte
Dim count As Integer = responseStream.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length)
While count > 0
ms.Write(buffer, 0, count)
count = responseStream.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length)
End While
responseStream.Close()
ms.Close()
Dim responseBytes() As Byte = ms.ToArray()
Dim encoding As New System.Text.ASCIIEncoding()
Dim Resp As String = encoding.GetString(responseBytes)
Dim Pos As Integer = InStr(Resp, "<lat>") - 1
Dim Nb As Integer = CharCount(Resp, "<lat>")
Dim Coords(Nb, 2) As String
Dim Counter As Integer = 1
Do Until InStr(Pos, Resp, "<lat>", CompareMethod.Text) = 0
Coords(Counter, 1) = Mid(Resp, InStr(Pos, Resp, "<lat>", CompareMethod.Text) + 5, InStr(Pos, Resp, "</lat>", CompareMethod.Text) - (InStr(Pos, Resp, "<lat>", CompareMethod.Text) + 5))
Coords(Counter, 2) = Mid(Resp, InStr(Pos, Resp, "<lng>", CompareMethod.Text) + 5, InStr(Pos, Resp, "</lng>", CompareMethod.Text) - (InStr(Pos, Resp, "<lng>", CompareMethod.Text) + 5))
Pos = InStr(Pos, Resp, "</lng>", CompareMethod.Text) + 5
Counter = Counter + 1
Loop
Resp = ""
For Counter = 1 To Nb
Resp = Resp & Coords(Counter, 1) & "," & Coords(Counter, 2) & ";"
Next
Return Resp
Else
MsgBox(response.StatusCode.ToString, MsgBoxStyle.Exclamation, "fout")
Return ""
End If
Catch ex As Exception
MsgBox(ex.ToString)
Return ""
End Try
End Function